Perspective: Licensing, legislating produce a gaffe in Florida

Costly error

Posted: February 21, 2013 - 1:04am

This editorial appeared in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Wednesday:

Sloppy legislating — creating unforeseen and undesirable consequences — can occur at all levels of government. If the legislators are lucky, the sloppiness results only in a minor glitch that goes largely unnoticed and can be quickly and quietly amended at the nearest opportunity.

Florida’s legislators were not lucky. Their sloppiness — in blindly requiring that all foreign drivers in the state carry a special driving permit — has caused an international uproar that could negatively impact the state’s tourist economy.

In this worse-case scenario are important lessons for Florida legislators, on carelessness and overreaching, that they should remember as they prepare to open another legislative session on March 5.

They might not have given the permit requirement much thought before passing it last year as part of a massive, omnibus bill— by a 40-0 vote in the state Senate and a 115-0 vote in the House — but they’re getting a harsh refresher course now.

Costly error

Canadian visitors, especially, are outraged — and rightly so. They make up more than a quarter of all foreign visitors to Florida, adding billions to our economy. They are largest foreign buyers of second homes in Florida, state data show. The average U.S. tourist spends five days in this state, according to Visit Florida. Canadians spend 18.

To make matters worse, the change in the driver’s license law was made without any perceived public notice. British media reported it first last week, then Canadian news agencies.

And the change took effect at possibly the worst time, Jan. 1, when many Canadians were already in Florida and thousands more were preparing to come. Untold numbers spent hours in Canadian Automobile Association offices, waiting to obtain the one-year International Driving Permit — an unofficial document that translates a license’s information into 10 different languages.

Florida officials, scrambling to save face, have announced that the new law will not be enforced because it may violate the Geneva Convention on Road Traffic.

But the lack of enforcement is no assurance that insurers will provide coverage if a Canadian is an auto accident while in Florida. Under the provisions of the new law, they are driving illegally while in the state.

Florida legislative leaders and Gov. Rick Scott, who signed the IDP bill into law last year, are contrite and promise to fix the law in the coming session. But, barring some extraordinary action, a change would not take effect until July 1 — long after the tourist season ends.

There is plenty of blame to go around. The IDP provision was part of a laundry list of changes requested by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. The changes resulted in a 105-page bill sponsored by state Rep. Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, and passed unanimously in both chambers of the Legislature.

Legislators no doubt face many massive, “housekeeping” bills proposed by state agencies, and reading them — let alone debating their arcane provisions — can be tedious.

But the IDP fiasco is a rare lesson in potentially far-reaching consequences of failing to take proper care. How many other seemingly mundane provisions, buried somewhere in a long, complex bill, become law without the proper scrutiny?

Read and beware

If Florida’s legislators take anything away from this experience, it should be this:

■ Read the bills you’re approving, or at least have a conscientious staff member do it, even if — make that “especially if” — they appear long and boring.

■ If you see the word “international” in a bill, an alarm should go off in your head. State legislators should avoid dealing with international affairs, which are better left to Congress or the United Nations.

That brings us to a final word of caution to legislators: When you revisit the International Driving Permit requirement, don’t try to amend it. Just take it out. That will be neater, cleaner and safer for Florida’s many visitors and our economy.